MORPHO-
GENETIC
(substitute MG for ART)
Ever since my 20’s I’ve lived with a hunch of how creative power might work and through recent readings those feelings have been reinforced with accounts from others.
Visiting a lecture by Rupert Sheldrake at the UVA and learning about his information field theory called morphic fields. A belief that there are unmeasurable factors at play connecting ideas and things through yet undefined fields.
SHELDRAKE link
“Causal entities which are somehow more than the sum of the parts of the developing systems, and which determine the goals of the processes of development.”
It resonated with me in a way that I undestood what resonating means, I understood how it worked but couldnt describe it.
“when so little is actually understood, there is an open possibility that at least some of the phenomena of life depends on laws or factors as yet unrecognized by the physical sciences."
The morphogenetic fields are undetectable and undefinable in mechanistic terms, yet the evidence of morphogenetic fields is within our own form.
This makes morphogenetic fields impossible to objectify and quantify. And so science, which insists on 'objective' viewpoints, is at a loss to explain anything that is un-objectifiable and so denies existence to it. When we look at the problem from the Quality is everything point of view of the Metaphysics of Quality, the quantitative problems of mechanistic classical thinking begin to disappear.
Dynamic Quality
"In the most general terms, form and energy bear an inverse relationship to each other; energy is the principle of change, but a form or structure can only exist as long as it has a certain stability and resistance to change."
Contrary to the philosophy of materialism, the conscious self can be admitted to have reality which is not merely a derivative from matter.
-> SO observe the spaces between the artist, the art and the observer
*
Frequently Asked Questions
Q- What is morphic resonance?
A- On page 95, Sheldrake writes: " The idea of a process whereby the forms of previous systems influence the morphogenesis of subsequent similar systems is difficult to express in terms of existing concepts. The only way to proceed is by means of analogy.
" The physical analogy which seems most appropriate is that of 'resonance'. Energetic resonance occurs when a system is acted on by an alternating force which coincides with its natural frequency of vibration. Examples include the 'sympathetic' vibration of stretched strings in response to appropriate sound waves; the tuning of radio sets to the frequency of radio waves given out by transmitters; the absorption of light waves of particular frequencies by atoms and molecules, resulting in their characteristic absorption spectra; and the response of electrons and atomic nuclei in the presence of magnetic fields to electromagnetic radiation in Electronic Spin Resonance and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. Common to all these types of resonance is the principle of selectivity: out of a mixture of vibrations, however complicated, the systems respond only to those particular frequencies."
In 1970, French molecular biologist Jacques Monod proposed what he called the “abstract kingdom” — a conceptual place analogous to the biosphere, populated by ideas that propagate much like organisms do in the natural world. Monod wrote:
Ideas have retained some of the properties of organisms. Like them, they tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed; they too can fuse, recombine, segregate their content.
" A 'resonant' effect of form upon form across space and time would resemble energetic resonance in its selectivity, but it could not be accounted for in terms of any known types of resonance, nor would it involve a transmission of energy. In order to distinguish it from energetic resonance, this process will be called 'morphic resonance'.
" Morphic resonance is analogous to energetic resonance in a further respect: it takes place between vibrating systems. Atoms, molecules, crystals, organelles, cells, tissues, organs and organisms are all made up of parts in ceaseless oscillation, and all have their own characteristic patterns of vibration and internal rhythm; the morphic units are dynamic, not static." (Pg. 95)
Here Sheldrake uses the very same words that Pirsig uses to divide Quality into 2 parts, static and Dynamic. It is indeed very tempting to believe they are both talking about the same thing.
(Robert Pirsig & His Metaphysics of Quality)
So now in the West we have objectivity, reason, logic, and dialectic on the one hand; and subjectivity, emotion, imagination, intuition, and rhetoric on the other. The former terms suggest scientific respectability, while the latter are often assumed to be artistic terms, having little place in science or rationality. It is this Platonic conception of rationality that Pirsig sought to challenge by reconciling the spiritual (for example, Zen), artistic (for example, art) and scientific (for example, motorcycle maintenance) realms within the unifying paradigm of the Metaphysics of Quality.
The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable and that in the past have been excluded for metaphysical reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and objects and anything that can’t be classified as a subject or an object isn’t real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all.” (p.121)
By ‘static quality’, Pirsig doesn’t refer to something that lacks movement in the Newtonian sense of ‘static’ (he agreed with me that the word ‘stable’ would have been better because of this ambiguity), but refers to any repeated arrangement – that is, to any pattern that appears long enough to be noticed within the flux of immediate experience – whether inorganic (for example, chemicals, forces), organic (plants, animals), social (cities, ant nests), or intellectual (thoughts, ideas).
" Morphic resonance is analogous to energetic resonance in a further respect: it takes place between vibrating systems. Atoms, molecules, crystals, organelles, cells, tissues, organs and organisms are all made up of parts in ceaseless oscillation, and all have their own characteristic patterns of vibration and internal rhythm; the morphic units are dynamic, not static." (Pg. 95)
Here Sheldrake uses the very same words that Pirsig uses to divide Quality into 2 parts, static and Dynamic. It is indeed very tempting to believe they are both talking about the same thing.
QUALITY
(Robert Pirsig & His Metaphysics of Quality)
So now in the West we have objectivity, reason, logic, and dialectic on the one hand; and subjectivity, emotion, imagination, intuition, and rhetoric on the other. The former terms suggest scientific respectability, while the latter are often assumed to be artistic terms, having little place in science or rationality. It is this Platonic conception of rationality that Pirsig sought to challenge by reconciling the spiritual (for example, Zen), artistic (for example, art) and scientific (for example, motorcycle maintenance) realms within the unifying paradigm of the Metaphysics of Quality.
The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable and that in the past have been excluded for metaphysical reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and objects and anything that can’t be classified as a subject or an object isn’t real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all.” (p.121)
By ‘static quality’, Pirsig doesn’t refer to something that lacks movement in the Newtonian sense of ‘static’ (he agreed with me that the word ‘stable’ would have been better because of this ambiguity), but refers to any repeated arrangement – that is, to any pattern that appears long enough to be noticed within the flux of immediate experience – whether inorganic (for example, chemicals, forces), organic (plants, animals), social (cities, ant nests), or intellectual (thoughts, ideas).
“Causal entities which are somehow more than the sum of the parts of the developing systems, and which determine the goals of the processes of development.”
“when so little is actually understood, there is an open possibility that at least some of the phenomena of life depends on laws or factors as yet unrecognized by the physical sciences." -Rupert Sheldrake
Attempting to get a grasp on morphogenetic fields is an example of the objectifying process we have all learned to use to categorize reality and to function as we do. Clearly, this is where most skepticism to Sheldrake's theory of formative causation arises. The morphogenetic fields are undetectable and undefinable in mechanistic terms, yet the evidence of morphogenetic fields is within our own form.
Morphogenetic Fields and Dynamic Quality
This makes morphogenetic fields impossible to objectify and quantify. And so science, which insists on 'objective' viewpoints, is at a loss to explain anything that is un-objectifiable and so denies existence to it. When we look at the problem from the Quality is everything point of view of the Metaphysics of Quality, the quantitative problems of mechanistic classical thinking begin to disappear.
Dynamic Quality is itself undefinable and undetectable, for as soon as Dynamic Quality is enclosed and named, it becomes 'something' else and not Dynamic Quality. The evidence of Dynamic Quality is only contained in its passing.
"In the most general terms, form and energy bear an inverse relationship to each other; energy is the principle of change, but a form or structure can only exist as long as it has a certain stability and resistance to change."
This is very similar to Pirsig's static latching. Without a certain stability to allow static latches to form, Dynamic Quality would be in a state of total Freedom, what we perceive as chaos. In place of form and energy that we can perceive, we must conceive instead of an unconceptual Energy that exists as Dynamic Quality in the Metaphysics of Quality.
Contrary to the philosophy of materialism, the conscious self can be admitted to have reality which is not merely a derivative from matter
EINSTEIN
(A) The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be “voluntarily” reproduced and combined.
There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above-mentioned elements. But taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought — before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be communicated to others.
(B) The above-mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will.
(C) According to what has been said, the play with the mentioned elements is aimed to be analogous to certain logical connections one is searching for.
(D) Visual and motor. In a stage when words intervene at all, they are, in my case, purely auditive, but they interfere only in a secondary stage, as already mentioned.
(E) It seems to me that what you call full consciousness is a limit case which can never be fully accomplished. This seems to me connected with the fact called the narrowness of consciousness (Enge des Bewusstseins).